Poetry and musings on life

A VISIT FROM THE PAST

She wandered through
The long green grass
With flowers in her hair.
He stood aside to let her pass
And tried hard not to stare.
Blossom flew on the breeze
And touched her rosy cheek.
It wasn’t in him to tease
And yet he couldn’t speak.
She said, “I have many fears.
I’m from another land.
It goes back more than forty years
And is hard to understand.
The sixties were a loving time.
We refused to go to war.
Which our rulers called a crime
‘Though most of us were poor.

Pop music roared through
Every heart.
The young had found a voice
And so I can’t stay here now.
Because I have no choice.
The other time to be alive
Was joyful to extreme.
A time I gladly would revive
When I lived the hippy dream.
How came I here, I do not know
It’s 2018
How I wish this were not so
Or what all this can mean.
May I travel back again
To that time of bliss?”
He said, “I will explain
but first give me a kiss.”

They kissed. The heavens
turned black and the ground
caved beneath their feet.
She cried, “Goodbye.
I’m going back. We never more
Shall meet!”
Was it the Beatles or the
Stones, The Animals or Who
Had captured her with vibrant tones
This he never knew.
He wandered lonely in the fields,
With blossom in his hair.
Not feeling all that Spring time
yields,
Just that she wasn’t there.

He looked up on the internet
The rockers of before
And agreed they were wonderful
He played them more and more.
It didn’t bring her back
But it helped him understand
How decades of rebellion
Have screamed across the land.
When he was old, a vision
Of that fair sixties child
Returned to him in dreams
Where she sang to him and smiled.
And though he prayed to wake
In the nineteen sixty two
He found each morning
His dream had not come true.
Yet the sky was a vivid
Shade of violet blue.

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2 thoughts on “A VISIT FROM THE PAST”

All so true, Margaret. I particularly like the touch of hope in the last lines. A piece of music can bring back a memory of an event as clear as day, but it’s dangerous to live in the past. I remember traveling to San Francisco once and seeing stacks of homeless men on the streets who had once been flower children; we have to go forward. By the way, yes, the internet is a blessing and a curse, and I’m spending time I don’t have doing my posts. 😃

Thank you Steve. You are right although the hippy era had its romantic side, its reality hit all too soon with the work shyness and drug culture. However, the concept of flowers instead of bullets appeals to me albeit in an ideal world.
You are right too the past exists in our imaginations. We may create artificial memories to suit nostalgic feelings of being young. This could prevent the development of a present or future creation that are not yet born. The past may be dead, but I still like Rock and Roll!
You seem to be much travelled. This is good for a poet. I haven’t been out of Europe!